In the Basement
by Dustbunny3
Summary: One-shot. Azureshipping. It's interesting what can come to light in the dark.


Disclaimer: Dustbunny doesn't own _Yu-Gi-Oh!_ Wow.. haven't said that in a long time...

A/N: I don't know what possessed me to enter a YGO! fanfiction contest, I really don't. As if my lack of inspiration isn't bad enough with my old fics to finish... But, it sounded like fun and I guess I was looking for a way to get back in. So, here's my entry for the first round, which should get me in by the skin of my teth. My internet connection is not kind.

Oh, and before you move on, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for this fic. It isn't at all what I thought it would be, and I'd be lying if I said I were content with it. But, it's written, if not quite up to what I like to believe my standards to be, and it's not horrible, so I guess I'll live. You might too

.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9.

Uncharacteristically seeing the bright side of things, Kaiba noted that the room he'd fallen into was quite spacious, if chilly. He'd hated cramped spaces since his youth, though it was not quite a phobia. So if he had to be dragged right in the middle of another of Yugi's enemy's insane plots, at least he had plenty of elbow room. Granted, spaces always seem more enveloping when one is not alone, and Mazaki wasn't exactly keeping tight to herself.

"Yugi!" she yelled up through the hole that she and Kaiba had broken in the floor during their fall, her tone concerned. "Jounouchi! Honda! _Can you guys hear me_?"

"Suppose for a moment they could," Kaiba drawled evenly. "What do you expect them to do about it? Levitate you out of here?"

She turned and glared at him, flush from all her shouting. Her lips were drawn into a tight line- a line Kaiba didn't doubt would be broken by heated accusations and insults, maybe a threat or two. Kaiba stared coolly back at her, waiting the onslaught resignedly. When it didn't come for the full count of a minute, Kaiba, aside from being mildly surprised that any of Yugi's group could stay shut up so long, wondered if perhaps her voice had given out. She'd certainly never had any problem scolding him before, and even he had to admit that he could see where she might consider this particular mess his fault (not that it was). This theory was disproved when she resolutely turned her back on him and continued her calls for help.

Kaiba, allowing a small sigh, cast a glance around the room. It was a regular old basement, from what he could tell, and clearly used for storage. Several pieces of old furniture, which certainly didn't help the musty smell of the place, were scattered around. Ratty cardboard boxes were stacked against a far wall; against this same wall, though much higher up, he could see what remained of a staircase, a few gnarly boards of cheap-looking wood. The door they had once led to had an impressive collection of what appeared to be the rusted and molded points of nails sticking through it. The only light was coming through the hole he and the girl had made, and it looked as though it was going to stay like that; the two hideous lamps he spotted were without bulbs, and the wires hanging from the jagged opening in the ceiling, to say nothing of the recollection of the sound of glass shattering against concrete mocked that they'd taken the light down with them, and that was if the bulb had been any good in the first place. Kaiba highly doubted it.

"_Hey_!" Mazaki was starting to sound irritated. "Is _anyone_ up there?"

"Probably not," said Kaiba as he pulled dusty furniture cover from a puke green armchair and sat down, earning him another glare, "but _I'm_ down _here_. All your noise is starting to give me a headache."

"A lot of help _you're_ being," Mazaki growled.

What she'd just said must have clicked something in that airy little head of hers, because she fell suddenly silent, and surveyed him almost cautiously, as though she thought he might attack her. Her face was curled up into a scowl of concentration as she cast her eyes from him to the hole to the room in general. She'd apparently realized that he was being inactive for _some_ reason, and now seemed to think that he was keeping some means of escape from her.

"You see this?" Kaiba held out the collar of his gray trench coat, and she leaned forward, squinting, for a better look at the Kaiba Corp insignia pinned there. "This is a homing beacon. I activated it some time ago. Someone will have been sent to retrieve me by now, and will be here for me within an hour. Behave yourself, and maybe I'll consider not leaving you down here alone."

But she had apparently stopped listening before his patronizing last sentence, as she squared her shoulders indignantly and demanded, "An _hour_? We might not _have_ an hour! We have to get out of here _now_!"

It took a moment for him to get over her ingratitude and register what she was suddenly so huffy about. Of course. The runt.

"I'd like to see Yugi humiliated as much as the next guy, but at least I'm showing some patience, Mazaki," he said. "Now why don't you give that big mouth of yours a rest and just wait for the rescue party? You shouldn't be on that leg in the first place."

Clearly taken aback, she moved her right ankle- the one he knew was twisted, if not sprained- behind the left as if guarding it from him. He saw her wince as some of her weight fell on it with the movement, and sent her a triumphant smirk. He'd heard her praised for her reflexes more than once, yet here she stood with an injury while he was banged up at the worst. Granted, she had hit first, and he wasn't exactly light.

To his annoyance, she chose to ignore him.

"Are you guys okay up there?" she called, an edge of desperation to her tone. "Hel_lo_! I'm stuck down here! Can anyone- hey!"

Quite tired indeed of listening to her whine, Kaiba had stood abruptly and pushed her down onto a dirty blue-and-maroon striped loveseat (was whoever owned this junk _color-blind_?). Clouds of dust and mold rose in protest as she landed hard and sank into the seat, causing her to hack and sneeze. As if in retaliation for her unexpected drop-in, much of the filth settled quickly to her powder blue t-shirt, and he wouldn't be surprised if grime had managed to crawl its way right up the denim shorts she was wearing beneath it. She glared at him indignantly through the cloud of mold and dust that refused to be shooed from her face. Given that her face looked as though she'd just used it to sweep an attic and her eyes were watering, Kaiba was hardly intimidated.

"It's bad enough I'm stuck here with you," he said as he returned to his seat. To his disgust, it appeared to have accumulated an extra layer of dust in his absence. "I would rather not have to be in the middle of your pity party when you start to really feel that ankle- to say nothing of how sore your throat is going to get."

Mazaki looked as though she had something to say in response, but was still coughing dust back out of her lungs and simply scowled. Kaiba looked back at her as coolly as if they were in a business meeting, keeping himself held stiff so as to ruin as little of his clothing as possible. Above them, through the hole, there was no sound. He looked up at it bordely, letting Mazaki display the worry for both of them; she certainly seemed to have enough of it.

"So," said Kaiba when the last of the dust seemed to have settled around his unlikely companion, "what's the horror of the week?"

Regarding him with a frown, she asked, rather hoarsely, "What are you babbling about?"

"What. Is. Supposed. To be. Going on. Up there," Kaiba enunciated as though speaking to a foreigner, brushing off Mazaki's glare as if it were a bit of lint on his coat sleeve. When it looked as though the words out of her mouth were not going to answer this civil- by his standards, at any rate- question, he went on, "A week can't go by that little Yugi isn't the center of some overcomplicated plot doomed to fail-"

"Like you have any room to talk," Mazaki cut in, sounding not entirely unlike a tired frog.

"Mokuba would be upset if he found out I'd left you here, so I'm going to ignore how rude you're being," Kaiba said as if this was the most gracious gesture imaginable. "But since I'm spending the time and energy to grace you with my conversation, I'd appreciate an answer."

He watched in something akin to interest as she flushed a dark pink and clenched and unclenched her jaw; she wasn't as easy to set up as Jounouchi, especially, it seemed, out of the company of the rest of her little group. Pity. Kaiba could use some entertainment after the day he'd had so far.

"Take a guess. It's as good as any of mine might be."

For less than a second, Kaiba was bewildered. Then he realized that she had finally deemed to answer him, and grew irritated. He was stuck down here, with her, missing whatever was going on up above, and he didn't even know why and she couldn't tell him. He looked up through the hole in annoyance, trying to ignore his own curiosity.

As if reading his thoughts, she said, barely hiding a smirk, "You have only yourself to blame. No one told you to show up."

Kaiba turned on the twit with the speed of a cobra going in for the kill.

"So I came uninvited, did I?" Kaiba was pleased to see Mazaki shudder at the venom laced through his tone. "It's amazing the way you just _know_ these things. Shall we chalk that up to women's intuition, or have you been taking fortune-telling lessons from that freak Roba?"

Kaiba watched as she went from uncertainty to realization and back again, with just a touch of defiance thrown into the mix. He guessed that she had likely taken a moment to figure out who he meant by "Roba," who he had no doubt Jounouchi had mentioned- probably more than once, since their duel had ended in the mutt's favor. It really didn't surprise him that someone like her, secretary of the Happy Brigade, would rule information on someone who'd left a last impression of being decent as unimportant in a situation such as this. What she was trying to get at with that skeptical glare was no difficult problem either; he waited for her to verbalize her opinion of his last statement, several retorts prepared in his mind.

"Someone told you to be here?" She obviously didn't believe him, obviously thought he'd stalked Yugi to the place- maybe lured Yugi to the place.

"Very good, you correctly interpreted my words," Kaiba said, painfully patronizing. "Oh, sorry- 'interpreted' means-"

"_Why_ would someone call you to be here?" There was an edge to her tone of voice; he was getting somewhere.

"If I knew that, I wouldn't very well be looking to you for answers, would I?" he asked her bordly, looking distastefully around the room to show her just how uninteresting he found her company. "Someone called me, asked if I'd like to see Yugi Muto humiliated. Gave this address and directions on how to get here. I was interested, of course, so I showed up. Enter the four of you, all ready to lay the blame on me for whatever your problem was."

"Enter that- that explosion, or whatever it was," Mazaki picked up the story, a look in her eye that suggested her mind was somewhere else. "And that wall that separated us from the others, made those loose floorboards give out-."

"And here we are," Kaiba finished, making sure that his tone left no question as to how displeased he was with where they were. "Not that I care, but what was it that the mutt was accusing me of? All I could make out was a bunch of growling and barking."

The girl folded her arms and her eyes turned cold, but Kaiba saw the way the corners of her mouth twitched against her will. She was amused despite herself, and she couldn't very well deny Kaiba's claims; Jounouchi had indeed growled and barked, if not in the strictest definitions of the words. Her amusement was short-lived, however, and, moreover, she'd apparently decided not to answer him. Instead, she cast her gaze appraisingly over the ill-looking boxes that were against the wall, looking from them to the door above.

"Get that door opened and I may be in position to be impressed," Kaiba said, startling her into returning her attention to him. "That's if- and this is a big if- those boxes can hold your weight all the way up to it."

Watching as she turned an angry red and puffed up in indignation, he decided that it was her own business if she chose to take his words as a slight on her rather than the state of the boxes in question. They didn't look as though they could support a cat, let alone a girl.

"Of course you would just sit here quietly," she said, not bothering to conceal her anger as she looked back towards him as though he were a particularly large cockroach that had just crawled from underneath her refrigerator. "Of course you wouldn't care enough about what could be going on up to try to think of a way to get out instead of just waiting for your minions to come and pick you up."

Kaiba had to make an actual effort not to laugh at the word "minions"; he was more accustomed to "thugs" or "cronies." He did feel, however, that he should answer before she really got going and there was no way to shut her up.

"What would it matter if we could get out of here? I dare say you remember the wall- came from the ceiling, looked like it was made of reinforced steel?"

"There must be some way around it- an old house like this, with floors just breaking out from under people-"

"And just what use would it be for you to find that way around? You don't really think you're _needed_ up there? What purpose would you serve, other than being in the way? You're better off sitting tight down here, and you can bet they are too."

At that, he'd expected her to launched into some sort of speech about friendship and loyalty, both subjects he had spent considerable amounts of free time in coming up with derisive comments to. Instead she jumped to her feet- only to yelp in pain, reminded painfully of why she was sitting down in the first place as she put her weight on her injured right ankle and pitched forward. Acting reflexively, Kaiba stood half out of his seat and leaned forward to keep her from hitting the ground.

A hand that he'd thought was making a frantic grab for his support curled into a fist and landed square in his eye.

Surprised and off-balanced, Kaiba staggered and hit the ground hard on one knee, reaching up with one hand to get an idea of the damage that had been dealt him. It wasn't bad, from what he could tell, but it throbbed and he didn't doubt it would swell. It might even bruise. In spite of himself, he was impressed.

In the meantime, his oh-so-charming companion had fallen against his chest with a grunt, her breathing as ragged as if she'd just run a marathon. She pushed herself away from him roughly, saving him the trouble, and landed hard on her butt, glaring up at him and looking as if she was working out where her next blow should land. For several minutes, neither of them spoke. Surprisingly, it was he who broke the silence.

"Am I to believe that I deserved this?" Kaiba gestured to his already swelling eye.

For her part, the girl, shakily hoisting herself back into the horrendous loveseat, seemed unable to answer him- or answer him properly, at any rate. She sputtered and spat out a collection of incoherent noises, amongst which he was able to distinguish the words "jerk," "cold-hearted," "lowlife" and a number of rather creative, if unladylike, variations of the same.

"You're very lucky, Mazaki, that I don't make a practice of hitting women," said Kaiba as he stood and towered over her, his words clear and dark. The girl shuddered, but stared up at him defiantly, and seemed to still be trying to come up with the words to tell him off proper. "Of course," he added, inching closer, standing taller, "women don't usually make a practice of hitting me either. An eye for an eye, wouldn't you say?"

To Kaiba's annoyance, she looked up at him unflinching, looking for all the world as if they were standing on equal footing. At long last she deemed to string words together in a sensible fashion, her voice as low and thick with danger as his own. "You've been trying to bait me, trying to get me to react for your own amusement since you're missing Yugi and Jounouchi to toy with. You're a big boy, you can reap what you sow."

Kaiba stood quietly, his jaw set as he stared Anzu strait in the eye; each was daring the other to be the first to look away, the first to blink. Not quite as adept as he, it was Anzu who first flinched in an almost blink- and that was when Kaiba made his move. Before she had time to properly register that he was advancing, he had her shoved roughly against the back of her seat as he leaned heavily over her. He smirked at her look of shocked uncertainty, and drew back just enough that he could look at her without splitting his vision.

"I'd be more careful, if I were you," he said silkily. "We're alone down here, you're injured and it's on good authority that no one would be able to hear you scream."

After a few seconds of enjoying watching her struggle not to be intimidated, Kaiba pulled away swiftly and made to go back to his seat. He stopped cold when the dim light that had been filtering in from the room above them suddenly disappeared. Anzu gasped in the sudden darkness, and he heard her shift closer to him.

"What happened?" Anzu asked in a whisper. "Why did the light go out?"

"How would I know?" Kaiba snapped. "I'm in the same boat you are."

"I was only-"

"Would you try to keep that mouth of yours shut for just a few minutes?" Kaiba asked smoothly. "I'm trying to listen."

She fell silent and he heard her suck in a breath and hold it. Seconds ticked by without interruption, although Kaiba wasn't sure whether this was more or less cause for concern. He moved the leg closest to the loveseat, barely, trying to get an idea of where Anzu was. If push did come to shove, he didn't plan on tripping over her.

At long last, the light came back on, though quite noticeably dimmer. Anzu and the loveseat were hardly more than shadows even to his focused gaze. He could just make her out as she shifted, hesitated, and started to get up.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kaiba asked, just a touch more exasperatedly than was necessary. It was hard to say for sure in the gloom, but he was pretty sure Anzu was glaring at him.

"I don't know, but something. Something is obviously going on up there," she said in a strained sort of voice.

"And you're stuck down- here with a bad ankle. Sit down."

"No."

"And what do you plan to do to get out of here?" Kaiba asked. "I wouldn't mind being let in on that one."

Yes, Kaiba decided, she was most certainly glaring at him. She didn't seem to be able to answer him to her own satisfaction, though, as she said nothing but let herself fall back into her seat with a huff- and immediately started sneezing again. When she had settled down, they were back to silence, Kaiba not moving to go back to his chair. What he could see through the hole hardly constituted as a view, but the loveseat was certainly set at a better angle to it. Not bothering to explain himself, he sat himself precariously on the other side of the loveseat, which creaked in protest at his weight.

"What are you doing?" Anzu asked, and he could hear the suspicion in her voice. Did she think he was moving in to pay her back for his black eye?

"Sitting."

"You're a laugh riot," Anzu spat. "Now what are you doing? Really?"

"I'm _sitting_. The angle is better from over here."

"Does it really do any good?" Anzu sounded impressed in spite of herself, and just a little hopeful. "Can you see anything?"

"Not really, no."

"Oh," she said quietly, and Kaiba could almost hear the implied 'some good you are then' in her voice. She sighed and shifted. They were both quiet for a few minutes, both looking up at nothing before she asked quietly, "Were you lying before?"

"When?" Kaiba asked, turning to regard her and seeing that she was looking at him; he couldn't say for certain, but he was pretty sure she was as close to studying him suspiciously as she could be in the poor lighting.

"When you said someone called you to be here."

"No, I wasn't. Contrary to popular belief, encouraged by more tabloids than I can remember, I have things to do other than stalking Yugi."

"But why-?"

"Why would they bother to call only to leave me in a basement? I don't know, and I can't honestly say I care at the moment."

There was another spell of silence. This time it was broken by a quick, badly-concealed giggle.

"What?" Kaiba demanded irritably.

"What?" Anzu replied innocently- too innocently to be sincere even if Kaiba didn't know any better.

"You're laughing at me."

"The world doesn't revolve around you, you know."

"But there's so much about this situation that's funny."

Anzu hesitated before answering, "It's just... what you said about tabloids encouraging rumors about you stalking Yugi. It, er, it reminded me of something I-"

"I don't think I want to know."

"Probably not," she agreed, and he could hear the smirk in her tone. "But you did ask."

"Hm."

The silence that followed was notably more companionable, which didn't say much for the silence that had preceded it. It had only stretched by about ten minutes when the light flickered vainly and went out again. Yet again, Kaiba felt Anzu shift closer to him. But there seemed to be little cause for alarm, as the light continued to flash as though delirious- sometimes growing quite bright, other times going out completely. A low buzz could be heard in accordance.

"What is going on up there..?" Kaiba heard Anzu mutter vaguely, staring intently up through the ceiling and clearly not talking to him. She was starting to rise cautiously from her seat, perhaps for a better view, when a number of the floresant bulbs above them suddenly burned as bright as small suns and popped loudly from the effort. Understandably shocked- even Kaiba had been taken enough aback to twitch- Anzu fell back- not into her own seat, however, but into Kaiba. The force lifted more dust, this time choking both of them.

"Would you watch what you're doing," Kaiba demanded angrily as he tried to wave away the cloud of dust, at least much less vicious than those before it. "You shouldn't have been standing up in the first place."

"I wasn't standing up," Anzu muttered defensively, a resigned air to her coughs. After a moment, when they were both a little better off, "There goes our light."

"So I noticed."

To Kaiba's surprise, he felt Anzu draw closer. It was only because he wasn't interested in disturbing more dust that he didn't wrench himself away. If she was that scared, fine, something to irritate her about later. Besides, at least he knew where she was- less chance he'd bump into her if he had to get up for some reason.

"What is going on up there..." she mumbled again. Then, "When did you say you had help coming?"

"It shouldn't be long now," Kaiba said. "Not that it'll mean much to you if I decide to just leave you here."

"They have to get you out somehow," said Anzu, "and breaking out a wall is the best bet."

Kaiba said nothing; her words gave him pause. How _was_ whoever rescued him going to get him out of here? He was unable to specify just what sort of trouble he was in. A dozen burly security men could show up, armed to their eyes, but they wouldn't do him any good if they didn't have some means of getting him out of the basement, would they? It was something to think about; perhaps he should work on finding some way of updating the homing device, of indicating what should be brought. While he was at it, he should find a way to get Yugi to pay into the development since it was only ever his fault that- had Anzu just moved closer to him?

"Did you just shift closer?" Kaiba asked, immediately suspicious. He still didn't know who had called him here, after all, and why _would_ someone call him only to leave him in the basement while all the action was going on? He'd been going with the theory that whoever had set this up was a complete idiot, but was that it? "Mazaki?"

"It's creepy down here," Anzu said grudgingly. "Besides, this way you can't try to run off and leave me in the dark."

"If you know somewhere I can run to, I'd like to hear about it."

"Shh!" Anzu suddenly hissed violently, which Kaiba considered to be quite rich of her. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"I don't know, I thought I heard shouting... Something overhead."

"_Anything_ would be overhead. And would you move back to your side of the couch?"

Anzu didn't answer, nor did she move away. Rather, she moved even closer, body tense, so that they might well have been joined at the hip. Then she moved closer still, so that she was practically in his lap. Since when had she been such a child? He turned to ask her this, but she must have leaned up to say something at the same time because he bumped his nose against hers and felt her breath against his jaw.

The room seemed much smaller all of a sudden. It wasn't as cold either.

Mind blank, something he wasn't used to, Kaiba cleared his throat pointedly; Anzu seemed to try to be saying something ("uh... I... er... heh...). She didn't pull away from him, though, and he didn't push her. They just sat like that for an uncertain amount of time; seconds were either passing faster or slower than usual, Kaiba wasn't sure. After what felt like an eternity- or maybe like a millisecond- Kaiba felt Anzu move; his arms were suddenly held tight by her hands, and she was trying to get him to face his torso towards her as she faced hers towards him. In a rush, images and audio from dreams that had never quite faded by morning that he thought he had suppressed some time ago flashed through his mind. They were alone in the dark- and it was on good authority that no one would be able to hear them scream.

Kaiba felt her breath on his face again, on his lips, and felt his own catch. Suddenly, it was her arms in his hands.

"You're baiting me," he rasped.

"I'm a big girl, Kaiba, I can reap what I sow," she responded. She sounded dazed, as though she wasn't sure what was happening, or as though it were happening in a dream.

After another second of hesitation, he dipped in closer. He shot several explanations for this through his unexpectedly hormone-frazzled mind- it would hurt Yugi; it would drive Jounouchi insane; it would give that other one a heart attack, and he was always just sort of there anyway; Anzu was good-looking, wasn't she, and now that he thought of it, he may well be on the edge of dying a virgin. When it came to it, though, none of that could account for the rush of something other than lust washing over him, the mad thoughts of holding her, bringing her home, _keeping _her that were cropping up.

"Kaiba... uh..."

"This would be less awkward if you'd call me-"

The ceiling about three yards away chose that moment to cave in, bathing them in harsh light.

If there was a point when Kaiba would expect Anzu to move closer to him, this would be it. Splintered wood and what looked like bits of machinery were hitting the ground and flying every which way, and no less on her side. Yet Kaiba had to grab her and pull her down and against him to prevent her from jumping back to her own side of the love seat.

"Stay down," he ordered gruffly, squinting to see what was going on. Anzu didn't answer, but he was vaguely aware of her trying to squirm away from him.

When the debris cleared and it didn't look as if anything else was going to fall through the hole, Kaiba chanced sitting and letting Anzu do the same. A voice, shouting but still sounding quiet by comparison to what had just happened called out.

"Anzu! Kaiba! Are you two down there? You okay?"

"No, Jounouchi you just crushed us," Anzu replied, the relieved edge to her voice belying her sarcasm. "Way to go."

"Anzu's okay," Kaiba heard Jounouchi say ruefully. Then, "Hey, did Kaiba get squished?"

"Sorry, mutt, I'm alive and well. In fact, I'm sorry to have to tell you that I'm better off than your little friend."

"What?" It was Yugi. "Anzu, are you hurt?"

"Just a sprained ankle," she called back, shooting Kaiba a glare and trying to move away; he was still holding her in place, and he could see in the light that her face was a color red that could only be healthy for a cherry. Not wanting to be responsible for her spontaneous combustion, Kaiba released her; she scooted away so quickly that he wondered if he had broken out in leprosy sores.

"Big brother?"

Kaiba snapped his head up to stare up through the recent hole so fast that it felt like he'd sprained something.

"Mokuba, what are you doing here?"

"Your distress call-"

"Was not for you," said Kaiba sternly. "I meant for-"

"Can you two do this later?" the other idiot- Honda? - called. "Let's get them out of there first."

"How?" Jounouchi asked skeptically.

"I think there's a rope ladder," Mokuba answered. "Hang on."

It transpired that there was a rope ladder, and it had been dropped down through the large hole within minutes, the hole that Kaiba and Anzu made having been inaccessible. Jounouchi and Honda were down it in no time, and walking swiftly to collect Anzu from where she sat as Kaiba stood. There was a split second in which Kaiba considered kissing Anzu, if only to see their reactions; it would be even better than if they'd heard about it after the fact. But the urge passed quickly and he simply went up the ladder as quickly as he could, setting his focus towards scolding his little brother.

"... and you're sure he didn't-"

"Yes, I'm sure," Anzu said irritably as her head appeared above the jagged rim of the hole, riding Jounouchi piggy-back. "I would _know_."

"Anzu, are you alright?" Yugi was beside her in an instant, looking irritatingly concerned.

"Just what are you suggesting I was doing to her down there?" Kaiba asked coolly.

"Nothing," said Yugi, looking taken aback. "I meant her ankle..."

Yugi frowned then, looking between Kaiba and Anzu, and opened his mouth to speak. Anzu cut him off with a growl.

"Don't you start asking stupid questions too," she said, now standing, supported on her right side by Jounouchi. "Honestly, you think I can't handle myself?"

"But you were hurt," Honda butt in as he pulled himself the rest of the way out. "And that weirdo" (he gestured to a sullen-looking man with greasy hair tied up in a corner with one of Kaiba's men standing over him talking into a cell phone) "mentioned getting Kaiba for something."

"Not that he was any more to worry about than you being stuck down there with-"

"Uh, do you guys need a ride or anything?" Mokuba asked, clearly getting annoyed and clearly trying to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"No, we drove," Honda told him. "Thanks."

"Alright. C'mon, Seto."

"What, you aren't concerned that she might have had her wicked way with me?" Kaiba asked, just loud enough that Anzu and friends could hear; Mokuba sped up just a little, flushing, and Kaiba obliged by speeding as well. He wasn't particularly interested in the spluttering going on behind him anyway.

Minutes later, about to step into the limo Mokuba had arrived in, Kaiba spotted Yugi leading the way around the house, presumably to whatever vehicle they'd arrived in, Honda and Jounouchi trailing after him with a slightly flustered Anzu supported between them. They disappeared around the corner and Kaiba lowered himself to the tasteful red seat and shut the door firmly, adjusting his coat collar higher around his face. It was chilly for such a sunny day.

.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1.

Good_ness_, that dragged on and on and on. I don't think I got across half of what I wanted to either. Yeesh... I have got to get writing again. On a similar note, I'm looking for a beta reader, maybe several. Contact me if you're interested.

Praise appreciated, concrit treasured, flames raspberried


End file.
